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Mark Benford
|Name=Mark Benford |Status=Alive |Job=FBI Agent |Flashed=Himself investigating the flashforward }}Mark Benford is an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and is leading the investigation into the cause of the Global Blackout. He is the husband of Olivia Benford and the father of Charlie Benford. Before the Blackout . ]] Mark, a recovering alcoholic, had recommitted to sobriety in order to repair his marriage. His wife threatened to leave him if he relapsed into drinking again. Up until the flashforward, Mark had been successful in attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings with his sponsor, Aaron, and exchanging whimsical love notes with his wife in which they sarcastically profess to hate each other, with obvious humor. At work, Mark and his partner Demetri had been investigating a suspected terrorist network who they believed to be planning a major terrorist attack. For the three weeks prior to the blackout, Mark and Demetri had been on a stakeout of their suspects, until the morning of the blackout, when they saw two of their suspects, Khalid and Omar, departing in a black SUV with an unidentified woman. They attempted to tail the SUV surreptitiously, but were spotted, and a high-speed chase ensued. In the middle of the chase, the global blackout occurred. Flash . ]] In his flashforward, Mark was in an FBI office, in a state of evident anxiety and frustration. He was pacing in front of a large bulletin board spanning one wall of the office, covered with notes and objects relating to his investigation of the blackout. Taking a long drink from a flask of some alcoholic beverage, he wrote a note reading "Who else knows?", underlined, on a page from a daily calendar, which displayed a date of April 29, 2010. He then saw two dark figures carrying weapons with laser sights, approaching the office. He readied his own weapon as they drew closer. They were wearing plastic Halloween masks that covered their entire faces. One had a tattoo with three stars on his left forearm, a tattoo which was diagrammed among the notes on the bulletin board. The flashforward ended before any violence erupted. Mark's flashforward was unclear and fragmented due to his intoxicated state. Post-GBO . ]] In the immediate aftermath of the blackout, Mark and Demetri attempted to render assistance to the injured, and tried in vain to contact their families. They saw the black SUV they were chasing, and found two of their suspects dead, but took the unidentified woman into custody. Upon learning of the widespread scope of the devastation, Demetri insisted that Mark go to check on his family.On his way to the hospital, Mark received a call from Olivia, assuring him that she was okay, and that Charlie was safe at home with the babysitter. Back at FBI headquarters, Mark attended a meeting, led by his superior, Stan Wedeck, in which they tried to make sense of what happened. Mark shared with the others present the experience of his flashforward, and they began to realize that they have all had similar experiences, glimpsing the same interval of time in their own lives, 10 pm Pacific Time on April 29, 2010. Demetri returned to headquarters with the prisoner as the agents continued to compare notes, and Wedeck decided to assign Mark, Demetri and Janis Hawk to the investigation of what caused the blackout and flashforwards. That evening, Mark and Demetri began assembling the bulletin board and notes that Mark saw in his vision. Demetri told Mark that he did not see any vision of the future during his blackout, and shared his concern that this meant he would be dead on the coming April 29. Back at home that night, Mark met with his sponsor, and confessed to him that he was drinking again in his flashforward. He explained that he could tell that it was not just "a one-time thing"; he felt just as he had back during the times when he was drinking heavily. Olivia returned home as Mark finished repairing the garage door opener, to her pleased surprise. After checking in on a sleeping Charlie, they went to bed, and Olivia asked Mark what he saw. He told her most of it, but omitted the part about his drinking, fearing her reaction, given her ultimatum to leave him if he were to start drinking again. He then asked Olivia what she saw, and she refused to tell him. He pressed her on the subject, and she eventually relented and told him that she saw herself with another man, someone who is unfamiliar to her but whom she seemed to know and have feelings for in her flashforward. He reassured her that just because they saw these things, that doesn't mean they are certain to occur, a sentiment that Aaron had told him earlier. gives Mark a friendship bracelet. ]] Later, after midnight, Mark sat outside in their yard on a swing set, when Charlie came out to sit in his lap, telling him that she had a bad dream. He saw that she was holding something in her hand, and she revealed the friendship bracelet which he saw himself wearing in his flashforward. As she gave it to him, fastening it around his wrist, he looked quite disturbed at this indication of the accuracy of his vision, and what that might mean for his alcoholism and his marriage. After an outburst in an AA meeting, and the news of Charlie's trouble at school, Mark interviews Didi Gibbons, who revealed she mentioned Mark's and Demetri's names in her flash, as well as pigeons. After a background check, it is revealed that Didi's credit card was used twice in two different countries within minutes, and that the pigeons she was talking about were a reference to the town of Pigeon, Utah. Mark and Demetri flew to the town, where they met with Sheriff Keegan, who simply mentions she did not experience a flash. After a failed attempt to catch the person who, supposedly, cloned Didi's card, Mark noticed an abandoned doll factory. Remembering a photo from his flash, Mark enters, and spots a shadow moving on the second floor. Going further in, the three set off a trap, where a man was holding two lighters above containers containing some sort of liquids. After reciting a quote, the man drops the lighters to the ground, releases grandees, shoots Keegan in the chest and escapes, leaving the two agents and the dead sheriff behind as the building explodes. In the aftermath, the investigators found a white chess piece, while Mark witnessed the photo he saw in his flash being taken. The agent came to the conclusion that the man was a computer hacker, trying to investigate the GBO on his own. Back in Los Angeles, after adding the crime scene photo to his office wall, Mark returns home and burns Charlie's friendship bracelet, determined to avoid the future he saw. Going to her room, Mark finds Charlie to be awake. She explains to him the trouble at school was caused by her fear of what she saw in her flash, and revealed to her father that D. Gibbons "is a bad man." Trivia *Mark has appeared in of aired episodes. Unanswered Questions *Who was coming for Mark in his flashforward? *Does being intoxicated mess up Mark's view of his flashforward, maybe even altering it? *What will cause Mark to go back to drinking like in his flashforward? *How will Mark get the friendship bracelet that he saw in his flashforward when he already burned it? *How far in the investigation was Mark in his flashforward? Category:Main characters Category:FBI personnel